


earth shaker

by usabuns



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Black Paladin Hunk (Voltron), Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Hunk & Lance (Voltron) Friendship, Hunk & Pidge working together like buds, Hunk & Pidge | Katie Holt Friendship, Hunk (Voltron) is so Pure, Hunk (Voltron)-centric, Hunk being appreciated, Not Canon Compliant, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Season/Series 02, Soul-Searching, badass hunk, hunk being the amazing engineer he is
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-02
Updated: 2017-07-10
Packaged: 2018-11-08 07:06:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11076516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usabuns/pseuds/usabuns
Summary: A collection of Hunk character studies. Updates sporadically.





	1. part i.

**Author's Note:**

> i have no real excuse for this except the fact that i really really really love hunk and i wanna put out content for him. 
> 
> idk when this will be updated but i'm already writing other little things to post. hoping to update weekly or bi-weekly since school is out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _anger._

It always starts out quiet: only a slight sting in the pit of his stomach, scratching him from the inside like a struggling animal. Hunk can usually calm the feeling; he'll scowl and furrow his brows, clench his fists tight, and eventually the discomfort passes. 

But sometimes the feeling stays, and bubbles up in a crescendo. Constantly, methodically, in time with the fast pace of his heartbeat. It will continue to grow; the caged animal will keep scratching incessantly. 

Hunk is not prone to bitter, fiery outbursts — usually, those are reserved for Pidge and Keith. Hunk is the self-proclaimed voice of reason, he is the level-headed logic of the group, he is the one to diffuse each impending altercation. 

Not always, though. 

There are times during tough, long fights where his nails will dig into his palms, where a piercing heat will rise up along his spine and tingle his nape white-hot. He'll blink once, twice, thrice — but the animal will start clawing at the linings of his belly, howling and flailing until he's almost paralyzed. 

It takes a lot for Hunk to snap. He has at least some impulse control most of the time. 

Any semblance of that disappears when Hunk tilts his head, growl on his lips and bayard gripped tightly in his hands. His eyes find Lance — _Lance_ , who can hardly breathe, who is held around the neck by a large Galra sentry, whose bayard is discarded on the ground at his feet, who pulls at the arms strangling him and elbows the robot in the chest, whose struggling does no good. 

The rage is always blinding. Hunk's breath hitches, and his feet move suddenly in Lance's direction, beelining toward him. A yell comes from deep within him, and the animal awakens; the animal has taken control. 

His gun cannon drops, clatters against the dusty dirt. Hunk's footsteps are manic and heavy, and thud angrily against the ground. 

He kicks in the sentry's knees from behind, he wraps his fingers around its neck. His palms press in, and Hunk effortlessly breaks its head off of its body. The sentry falls, destroyed, defeated. Lance clamps around its arms and yanks them off, just as Hunk throws the decapitated head to the floor. 

And just as fast as it's there, the rage quells; the animal gets smaller until it is only a whimpering thing, shrouded in a dark corner. His expression changes to concern, his breathing dies down, his blood stops boiling. 

"—Are you okay?" Hunk's tone is panicked and shaky, his voice is sweet. The calm touch of his hand gently surges through Lance's shoulder as he helps him up — the same touch that had, only moments ago, been filled with an immense strength, a power only awakened by pure fury. 

Hunk's eyebrows are creased, and he looks almost fearful. Lance gives him a strange look and nods slowly. He rubs at the red marks dotting his neck. Voice choked, he gets out, "Y-Yeah, dude, I'm— _Fine_ , really. You saved my ass, huh—" 

"—Don't mention it." He's quiet when he says it, eyes soft as he smiles and reaches for his bayard through the sounds of gunfire. Lance tries to speak up, but stops himself, grabbing his own bayard, and shooting Hunk a curious expression before running to provide back up for Pidge. 

Hunk watches him go, but turns in the opposite direction, shrugging off his uncharacteristic flare-up and throwing himself back into the fray.


	2. part ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _engineer._   
> 

There was a blotted, inconsistent trail of screws and nails leading, eventually, to Hunk's door — and then spilling underneath into the space between the door and the floor, creeping its way inside. It had always been that way, even back home. 

The metal glistened under the soft sconce lights of the castle corridors, catching Pidge's eye. Her bare foot nearly jammed squarely into the tip of a small screw, and the closeness made her jump back slightly, almost dropping her drink, a yelp on her lips. She pushed some nuts and bolts aside before taking a cautious step toward Hunk's quarters, her head perking up. 

"I wonder what he's..." Pidge's voice trailed off into silence as her palm cupped her chin. The noise coming from inside was relatively quiet, but there were still distinct sounds of wrench squelching and motor oil squeaking. 

_Mechanical pieces moving, not computer components buzzing_. 

Pidge often had to remind herself that there was a distinct differentiation between how she and Hunk worked. There was a difference in where either's talents lied — two sides of the same genius coin. That was how she liked to think of it. 

The light inside was dim, and barely spilling through the cracks in the doorway, but there was enough to illuminate little puddles of golden light on the floor. Pidge stood in front of it for a short moment, listening to the sounds, before she lifted a fist and knocked twice. 

"—Come in!" Hunk shouted, from the work desk in the far corner, and almost instantaneously the door slid open. Pidge stepped in, and it swiftly closed behind her. "Was I being too loud? Sorry 'bout that." 

On the tabletop, there was a mess of coiled wires and small machine parts, some steel-colored and others a blur of blue and white. Whatever the original object had been before was completely unrecognizable — Hunk had disassembled all the inner workings, and was replacing broken pieces with new, clean ones. He seemed to be completely absorbed in his work. 

Pidge set her glass of water down on the opposite end of the desk and hugged her arms in tight to her chest. "No, no, I— Uh... I just followed all the _stuff_ outside your room." 

"Stuff—? _Oh_ , right, whoops..." Hunk grinned at her sheepishly, his hands still moving parts around and screwing them in place. He had his dark hair tied back in a small bun with the ends of his headband, and there were sweat stains on his armpits. 

It was then that Pidge noticed the smell — it was salty and strong, forming something of an aura around Hunk. And she must've crinkled her nose, because Hunk looked at her and chuckled. "Yeah, it stinks real bad, huh? I've been working for an hour in this stupid heat—" 

Indeed, there'd been somewhat of a massive heatwave currently surrounding the castle for some reason or another, and no amount of air conditioning seemed to help. Thus, Pidge often had to roll her hoodie sleeves up, and she wasn't at all surprised to see that Hunk had did the same to his yellow shirt. His vest was even off, slung over the back of his chair. 

"—Fixing _this_ ," he motioned to the machinery, clanging his wrench down against the desk. 

Pidge leaned down to inspect it, but when she still couldn't tell what it was she asked, "Well... What is it?" 

"Lance's bayard." 

There was a pause from her, and then, " _Figures_." A heavy sigh accompanied her statement, along with a brief shake of her head. "What'd he do _this_ time?" 

"I don't know all the details, but," Hunk grinned slyly, "I do know that Keith sliced clean through it with his sword." At that, Pidge let out a snarky laugh, then leaned her forearm on Hunk's broad shoulder. 

“Sounds like he was provoking him too much.” Pidge gave a little smile and sipped her water, a sudden bout of thirst overcoming her. She wiped her lips clean after, then peeked at the fray of wire guts spread out on the desktop. “Overstepping his boundaries, probably.” 

“I wasn’t too keen on asking,” Hunk admitted with a shrug as he picked up his screwdriver. “Lance was pretty, uh… _devastated_. And, y’know, tearing up a bit.” 

“I believe it,” Pidge mumbled, watching intently as Hunk worked. 

To her, there was something enticing about the way Hunk fixed up machines. His hands moved gracefully, big and calloused but able to adjust the tiniest, most delicate pieces meticulously in place; his eyes were always full, completely centered on the current project, with joy-filled irises giving the metal workings their undivided attention; and the way his tongue would stick out just slightly when he was supremely concentrated was simply _cute_ , for lack of a better word. Even if Pidge didn’t think of him that way. 

_It had to be natural talent_ , she thought, and it wasn’t the first time, because no amount of schooling or wit combined could even hope to equal the engineering prowess Hunk possessed. 

And Pidge had been told similar things: that her familiarity with computers was a gift, that her genius was God-given. She couldn’t deny any of it, really, because that was how it had always been. The talent had been there, and once she’d figured it out the passion for it had blossomed from her at a young age. Technology might as well have been a part of her now. 

_But what about Hunk?_ Pidge stepped backward to allow breathing room, and nursed her empty glass in her palms. Her eyes were wandering about his room when she inquired, “—What made you want to be an engineer?” 

If the question fazed Hunk at all, he didn’t show it; there was only a split-second reel-back where his eyes widened briefly and his lips turned blank, but then he went back to normal, grinning lightly as his muscular arms moved swiftly. 

After a moment, a smooth chuckle made its way out of Hunk’s lips. “Well, I guess I was always interested in it. Even when I was a little kid I’d build things, and sometimes I’d break toys apart just to see what was inside, then put ‘em back together.” It was quiet for a moment, and Hunk continued working. 

Pidge eyed him carefully, wondering if she had perhaps struck an awkward subject; still, she nodded her head and let her fingers tap against the tabletop. 

”I dunno, it was just…something I was good at. It always felt second-nature to me, like breathing or blinking, and not, like, a special skill or something.” He frowned, and looked back at her. “Sorry, that probably sounds kinda pretentious, huh?” 

Pidge laughed. “A little. But I say stuff like that all the time, too.” A rush of heat came to her cheeks at the confession, an admission of knowing all that tech jargon she spewed was partially for bragging rights. 

Hunk hummed, and there were audible squeaks from the nuts and bolts chafing against oil-slicked metal plates. He fused two ends of a broken wire back into one, connected the inner power crystal back into the main control board — and all of it was done with such ease and fluidity that Pidge really couldn’t peel her eyes away from the sight. 

While repairing, still, Hunk went off on another tangent, as he tended to do, “—Or, it’s because my dad did a lot of mechanical work. Probably, like, rubbed off on me or somethin’.” He gave a lazy shrug. 

“Could be both,” suggested Pidge as she leaned closer. More than likely, it _was_ a combination of both; an amalgamated effort of nature and nurture that had molded Hunk into the genius engineer he was today. 

Hunk picked up the bayard, twisting it around and then raising a dirtied towel up to wipe it clean of sleek, black oil. “Yeah. Just might be,” he said cooly, the barest smile on his face. It was amazing how nonchalantly he brushed the whole thing off, how strangely humble he seemed. 

“—Did he teach you stuff?” Pidge had blurted, because really, she couldn’t contain herself for much longer. 

There was the tiniest movement from Hunk’s pointer finger, in which it flicked two switches and flaps back into place on an opened panel on the side of the gun, just below the blue stripe. “Well, uh. ‘Teach’ is a strong word. It was more like I’d hover over him all day, and eventually I, well… I figured out how to do the things he was doing. Sometimes, he’d explain the more complex techniques as he was doing them.” 

“Ah, I see.” 

She had settled herself down on Hunk’s chair as he stood, fussing around with the exterior of the bayard, making the superficial appearance look good as new. In this crouching position, Pidge pulled her legs up against her chest and let her chin rest on her knees. 

The silence remained persistent for a few moments until Pidge stood up on her seat, peering over the shoulder of Hunk, who was now currently standing in front of her. “Then— I wanna learn some things, too, if that’s alright.” 

“Course it is,” chimed Hunk, holding up a small screwdriver for her to see. “I’m gonna fix up the outside wires and stuff— Mostly just aesthetic changes, really. The insides are pretty much good as new.” 

And so she watched as he rhythmically tightened loose screws, snapped panels shut, tucked in loose wires and cut off the stray ones. He had described various tools, what they could be used for, the nature of particular procedures — Hunk worked masterfully, even with Pidge propping her tired head upon his shoulder blade. 

He replaced outer plating, brightened up the paint job. Scrubbed the laser lense clean of filth. Reinforced the gun’s grip, unjammed the trigger. 

Some minutes later, Hunk held up his handiwork, and Pidge reached out to touch it, clenching it in her own hands. “—I mean, that’s pretty much it for repairs, so. Let’s test it out.” 

She responded, a little too quickly and enthusiastically, with a “Sweet.” Pidge grinned as she cocked the gun, and aimed squarely at the far wall. As soon as the gun was completely steadied, she took the shot, leaving a singed black, circular mark on the wall in its wake. There’d been some recoil, some drawback, but aside from Pidge getting rocked slightly off balance, it hadn’t affected her much. “Looks like it’s in working order.” 

Hunk looked proud, but his voice was still doubtful when he asked, “Can you switch it back to bayard mode properly?” 

Pidge shrugged before clutching the handle in one hand, and then putting all her might into willing for it to change back. After a second or two, the laser gun transformed back into a bayard, and both Hunk and Pidge let out a simultaneous cheer. 

Hunk held his hand up, offering up a fist to bump. Pidge did, and then Hunk gave her a solid pat on the back. “Nice!” 

“I should be saying that to you. This work is— _immaculate_ , really…” Her voice couldn’t help but trail off as she treaded her fingertips along the tidy repairs Hunk had made. And, again, she was lost in the precision, the neatness; the gun even seemed to shoot better than before. Pidge suspected her eyes were as wide as dishes, sparkling in awe as she gazed over the smooth metal plates screwed back in position and the near-perfect paint job. 

And — she’d gotten a chance to see him really work in his element, instead of the other way around where he played assistant to her inquisitive experiments. 

“Aww. You’re flattering me, Pidge.” The way he cracked that crooked, yet genuine grin told Pidge otherwise, though. But before she could assure him that she was being truthful, Hunk put a hand on her shoulder comfortingly. “Hey, it’s getting late, but— Do y’think you could give this to Lance on your way back to your room?” 

Pidge held her thumb up, clutching the bayard at her hip. She gave a yawn, and then, “You got it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i asked [jackie](http://kkatekane.tumblr.com/) for prompts and she requested "how hunk became an engineer", & honestly i think i deviated a little bit from that haha. but i still enjoyed writing it! 
> 
> i hope you liked it, any sort of feedback is appreciated.


	3. part iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> > _courage._   
> 

Hunk feels the stars in his hands. 

It is a warm, gentle hotness that grounds him, and a heated, piercing light that bounces off his mocha skin and illuminates the pitch darkness that will sometimes nearly engulf him. 

The stars combat the despair that consumes his bravery, that makes him weak when he just wants to be strong. 

The stars are hope, and sometimes their flickering can spark even the dampest logs into a churning fire. The stars fight the evil, the sadness in his heart that will awaken out of grief and of folly; his gold will be tarnished by rust on days where he second-guesses, where he panics and falls, but the stars will fight that feeling until their dying dust. 

Those stars are the galaxy, the universe. They are the endless stream of possibilities. 

He finds it in his soul to move forward, a burning passion born from struggle and flames, that makes a determination clench in his fists and teeth, that makes him step closer to danger and howl at the enemy that he won’t lose. 

Hunk feels the stars within himself, shining brightly with the illustrious gleam of a thousand diamonds basking in the inviting beams of the strongest red sun. His throat is tight with anticipation, his hands tremble only slightly, but then he’s pulled into his stubbornness; his face becomes a mask and he tenses, and the fear that once ate at his psyche now bows before the might of his fierce conviction. 

He doesn’t will himself to be a coward, doesn’t place himself into the traps of timidity and fear. Valor boils through his veins, heats up the stars that are engraved upon his very palms and energizes a fortified persistence within his mind. 

When pushed, Hunk can shift into a cold, dauntless, and bold soldier, capable of anything he pleases — because he knows how to be brave and gutsy; he knows how to push out the sweetness and softness of his personality on occasion, and replace those with a fearless and firm demeanor; Hunk knows exactly how to stand up when he’s needed and fight the good fight. 

It’s the stuff of legends, of Greek myths and old folk lore. This is the stuff great rulers and heroes are made of. Leaders cup countless stars in the palms of their hands. 

And although his heart thumps fast against his ribcage, and there is a tinge of sweat lining his jaw and a growling knot of anxiety twisting his stomach, Hunk still walks forward, resolve in every step, and gives a concise nod of his head. He stands straight up, eyes unflinching and stance relaxed but solid, and knits his brows tenaciously — the certainty in his body language is not lost on the others (who are standing far behind him, waiting, facing his back), especially in the blank line of his lips and the power he commands in his armor of obsidian. 

Hunk reaches out his cautious, yet resolute arm, and it’s as if all of the stars in the sky have lit up at once. He can feel them, too, in his bare hands, underneath his gloves, glowing in spite of everything pitted against them. There are explosions against his skin, charging him up with adrenaline and making his head buzz and thudder. 

Then, thankfully, the yellow eyes of the Black Lion awaken into a near-blinding supernova, and she gives a mighty roar, but calms as she leans her big, metal head downward to lightly graze the smooth palm of the Black Paladin’s hand. 

And Hunk lets out a relieved breath, his composure vanishing as his trademark grin splits his face and pulls his lips up — and he feels something click, something binding him to the rest of the swirling nebulae in deep space. Something, even for all his intelligence, that he cannot fully comprehend. 

But it feels right, it feels perfect, and the stars embroidered upon Hunk’s hands shine more vigorously than they ever have before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i updated this recently, but i ended up writing this in between other things, and i liked it so much that i decided to just post it now lol. i just really love playing with the concept of black paladin hunk, okay. *finger guns*
> 
> hope you enjoyed it, and lmk if there are any typos (cuz this hasn't been beta'd)!!!

**Author's Note:**

> **⁺✧. come talk to me!**   
> 
>
>> ♡[tumblr](http://usabuns.tumblr.com)  
> ♡[twitter](https://mobile.twitter.com/usabuns)


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